The Forbes 400 List of America’s richest people, not only includes six new crypto billionaires, but one of the six newbies is FTX owner Bankman-Fried who makes up almost half of the collective wealth of the six crypto billionaires.
The first crypto billionaire to make the Forbes 400 List was Chris Larsen in 2018. The Ripple co-founder and businessman appeared on the list last year with a net worth of $2.7 billion. This year Larsen is joined by a number of crypto exchange founders such as Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, the Winklevoss twins and owners of Gemini, and Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam.
Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of FTX, is a newcomer to the Forbes 400 List but makes up almost half of the collective wealth of the 6 new crypto members with $22.5 billion net worth. The 29 year old CEO is currently the richest person in crypto, namely due to the FTX crypto trading platform that he built over the course of two years that recently closed a $900 million Series B fundraise.
The second richest crypto billionaire on the list is the CEO of Coinbase Brian Armstrong who has a net worth of $11.5 billion. Coinbase made history in April with the largest ever direct listing of $86 billion. Armstrong currently owns around 19% of the crypto exchange, and is accompanied on the Forbes 400 List by Co-founder of Coinbase Fred Ehrsam who left the company but still remains as a board member and has an estimated net worth of $3.5 billion.
Members of the ‘crypto rich list’ are likely to increase next year, with the rapidly growing industry quickly seeing many millionaires reaching a billion dollar net worth. 12 new crypto billionaires made the Forbes World’s Billionaires list in 2021, going up from 4 the previous year.
The growth of the industry can be seen in the wealth that is being demonstrated by the amount of millionaires and billionaires that are cropping up each year. With large institutions investing and adopting cryptocurrency, the increase in the crypto wealthy is the natural effect of this growth.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
